College English Listening and Speaking Course 4 - Unit 8听力原文

2021年1月22日发(作者：戚雅仙)
College English Listening and Speaking Course 4
Listening Text

(NEW)
Unit 8 Aging
Part A Pre-listening Task
Additional questions for discussion

1. What are the common ailments of the elderly?

It is common for old people to suffer from one or several chronic illnesses (
慢性病
). I guess
many of these illnesses are related to a decline in their physical and mental abilities. Take my
grandparents for example. My maternal grandfather (
外祖父
) has high blood pressure, and
my grandmother has diabetes (
糖尿病
). When I visited my grandparents last time, I noticed
that they sometimes complained about pains in their back or legs, and they seemed to have
a hard time remembering new telephone numbers.

2. What are the secrets of a long life?
As far as I know, there are quite a few do's and don'ts. Let's name a few on the
first. Have a balanced diet with fresh vegetables, fruits, grains, meats and milk; drink a cup
of red wine every day; have regular, moderate exercise; have adequate sleep; get regular
medical check-ups and have any problem taken care of early; maintain an optimistic (
乐观的
)
view on things; and keep a healthy lifestyle. On the
eat too much fat or salt; don't have too much stress; don't shut yourself up from the outside
world; don't refuse to use your brain, and etc. In addition to the above, a little bit of good luck
won't hurt. Then, you will live happily to be 100 years old.

Part B Listening Tasks
A Terrible Disease

The phone rang and it was my husband Jack asking me to take some lunch to his office. As
I drove off, I noticed a new shopping center. Strange I hadn't noticed it before. Near his office
I also saw a fire station I didn't recognize.

'When did they build that new shopping center?' I asked Jack. 'And I'm glad to see that
new fire station. It'll give a good landmark.'

'Diana, they've been there for ages,' Jack scolded.

Bewildered, I became angry and, starting up the engine, began to pull away. Then I
braked. Where was the exit? Suddenly, nothing was familiar. I realized I had no idea how to
get home. I had to stop again and again to ask for directions. Eventually, I got home. A
30-minute drive had taken me four hours.

Two months later, at the office where I worked as a legal researcher, a smart young man
approached me.

'Hi, Diana. Good to see you,' he said, smiling.

I hesitated, then smiled with resignation. 'Please forgive me, it's one of those days. I
simply can't bring your name to mind.'
College English Listening and Speaking Course 4
Listening Text

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'Diana, I'm your cousin Richard,' he said very slowly.

After that, I was constantly making mistakes and kept forgetting my way around the
building. In the end, I made the painful decision to resign from work. I also started pretending
to be a tourist when I got lost because residents tend to give much better directions to visitors.

Desperate to discover what was wrong with me, I made an appointment with a
neurologist. After various tests he told me I had Alzheimer's disease. I felt numb. I'd hoped
to find I was worrying about nothing, but now my worst fears were confirmed. And I was only
53!

When I told Jack and my three grown-up children about my disease, their reaction was
quiet but supportive. 'Stop worrying,' Jack said. 'We'll take good care of you.'


That night, I was looking through some papers belonging to my mother, who'd died of
cancer years before, when I saw her maps. They were hand-drawn and covered every place
my mother went, including my house. As I examined them, I remembered Mother's other
eccentric habits. She wouldn't drive out of her neighborhood or at night. One day, she hadn't
even recognized me. Could she have had Alzheimer's, too, without anyone realizing?

Now at 57, on good days I'm filled with hope and determination, but on bad days I have
the worst sense of being alone. I've started a support group for other sufferers, for I know it's
essential to have contact with people who are walking through the same maze.

Jack's coping well. While he still dreams of waking up to find all this has been a horrible
nightmare, he's assured me that I can depend on him. When we married he didn't know 'for
better or worse' included Alzheimer's. But neither did I.
Questions:

1. What does the story mainly tell us?
2. Which of the following is one of the symptoms of the speaker's disease?
3. What can we learn from the story?
4. What do you know about the speaker from the story?
5. What can be inferred about the speaker's mother?
Speaking Tasks I: Reflections:


Life can sometimes be very cruel. At 53, the woman in the story seemed to have
everything she could wish for -- a good job, a caring husband and three grown-up children.
But just when everything seemed so good, she spotted the first signs of a terrible disease,
Alzheimer's. She failed to recognize buildings that were familiar to her before and even forgot
how to get home from her husband's workplace. A thirty-minute drive took her four hours.
And her situation worsened quickly. Once she even failed to recognize her cousin. Work, too,
became difficult as she constantly made mistakes and had trouble finding her way around her
office building. Eventually she made the painful decision to quit her job. The heaviest blow
came when results of medical tests announced that she had the incurable disease of
Alzheimer's. Her worst fears were confirmed.

However, far from burying herself in tears and self-pity, she took a positive attitude
toward her illness. She learned to live with the disease. Her family, too, were supportive. Her
husband and children promised to take good care of her. She also got strength from her
deceased mother. Looking through some of her mother's things, she came upon evidence
College English Listening and Speaking Course 4
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that her mother, too, might have suffered from Alzheimer's without their realizing it. The
carefully drawn maps indicated how difficult it must have been for her mother to find her way
around.

Her positive attitude probably helped to slow down the worsening of her disease. Four
years after she was diagnosed with the disease, she was not only coping well but was also
able to help other patients suffering from the same disease.

II. Debating - Topic:
Arguments for or against
mercy killing

Perspectives:

1. From the perspective of the dying man's son (for)

My father was diagnosed as having a tumor in his brain a year ago. Last June a
neurosurgeon removed the tumor but to try to kill any remaining tumor cells, my father has
to undergo radiotherapy and chemotherapy alternatively for twelve weeks. The treatment
made him sick and he lost all appetite for food. And he has to be fed through a tube let down
into his nose. Two months ago, his situation worsened even more. Tumor cells were found in
his bones, which caused great pain to him and seriously impaired his ability to move. All day
and night he can only lie on his back, unable even to turn. Seeing him in this condition breaks
my heart. He used to be such an energetic person, always busy working and never idle for a
moment. But now his illness has reduced him to a motionless being.

In his waking moments, he begs me to stop the treatment and let him die in dignity. I
know the pain is killing him. As medicine has proved useless in his case, I think mercy killing
may be the only way to end my father's suffering. It is meaningless to prolong his life when
there is no chance of recovery.
2. From the perspective of a doctor (against)

I don't think I can say yes to the request of the patient's son. The patient in this case is
indeed suffering from great pain, but we can't say that there is no chance for him to recover.
The science of medicine is advancing very fast and new drugs to treat cancer are being
developed almost daily. If we do our best to preserve his life, we may be able to save his life
after all.

I think a doctor's duty is above all to preserve a patient's life, not to terminate it. A doctor
can never state that his patient has no chance of recovery, no matter how bad the situation
may seem. There have been many cases in which a patient miraculously survives a serious
condition. Medical records have shown that people may suddenly awake from a coma that
has lasted months or even years. Human life may be less fragile than we realize. And human
life is too precious for us to terminate it.


As for mercy killing, I think it is much more an ethical issue than a medical one. It is not
for the doctor to decide whether to preserve or terminate a human being's life. There must be
laws that we can act in accordance with. Besides, mercy killing, if not properly administered,
may expose sick people to all kinds of danger. So according to the present law, I'm afraid no
doctor in our country would agree to practice mercy killing on the young man's father.

C: